Wireless FAQ for Windows 7

I am connected but none of my programs seem to be able to access the internet.

If you are connecting via the unencrypted channel, you will need bring up a web browser to complete the connection process. The browser will then be automatically redirected to NMT's wireless login page. Enter your Banner ID and Password to finish the connection process. If you are connecting via the encrypted channel, then authentication has failed. At this point try re-entering your credentials.

How do I see what wireless channels are available?

Right click on your network connection icon in the taskbar and select "Connect to a network".

A new window will appear and from this window you can pick one of the wireless networks to connect and use.

How do I log into the unencrypted channel?
The NMT-UNENCRYPTED-WEB-LOGIN is an unencrypted channel which will work with just about any client computer and operating system combination. This channel should be used with caution because anyone could monitor what you view and do over that channel if isn't specifically encrypted between the client computer and the serve (i.e., https, ssh).

To login and use the NMT-UNENCRYPTED-WEB-LOGIN you just have to open a web browser and wait for the login page. The login page currently looks like:

The username is your Banner ID and the password is the same password used to access Banweb. The web login page is encrypted via SSL which will prevent people from being able to steal the passwords used in the login process.

How do I connect to the encrypted channel?

The NMT-ENCRYPTED-WPA-WPA2* is considerably more secure than the unencrypted channel, but is much more complicated. Currently it supports several different modes of operation. The table below is a summary of the different modes available.

**Note: If you plan to use EAP-TTLS please download and install SecureW2 client.

How do I switch to using the built in windows wireless utility?

You would like to switch from using the card manager utilities that came with your wireless network to the built in Windows utilities. To change this perform the following steps.

First open a command prompt. Then enter the following: set autoconfig enabled=yes interface="INTERFACE_NAME" , replacing INTERFACE_NAME with the name of your wireless adapter.
You can verify the change by entering the following into the command prompt: netsh wlan show settings.

What authentication systems can be used in Windows?

PEAP with MS-CHAPv2 is built directly into Windows. To support EAP-TTLS, Windows will need additional software and we have found that SecureW2 (located at: http://www.securew2.com/) is a good client.

Troubleshooting the wireless connection

In a weak signal area the authentication system seems to stall out, and when you move to a place with better signal it still will not let you in.

This problem is caused by a stale session that has not been cleared out of the wireless system. When you move to a new location, the wireless system still sees the old session and it won't authenticate until the old session has been cleared. To clear the old session you can disable the wireless network interface for ten minutes and then try again.

After disabling the wireless network interface to clear out a stale session and then trying again, the wireless still doesn't work.

This problem is caused by your drivers not actually turning the radio of the wireless network card off. Try turning the computer off for ten minutes and then try again.

It is hard to connect to the wireless system even when you appear to have good signal quality.

This problems to seems to be most often associated with older drivers. Get the latest drivers that are available for your wireless card. Make sure that you are using Windows XP SP1 with http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=815485 patch applied or Windows XP SP2 http://support.microsoft.com/?id=893357 patch applied if you are trying to use the encrypted networks. Double check the driver options of your network card and verify that it is set to auto for any properties that can do auto.

When using the encrypted network it seems to take a long time to first process the authentication before logging onto the network.

This is not necessarily a problem. This slow authentication is caused by the wireless system negotiating an encryption key when you first access the system. If windows has not been rebooted after such a negotiation, the authentication will be faster.

You just changed your Banner password and the new password doesn't work.

The wireless runs updates to get the new password information on a regular schedule, but it isn't instantaneous, try logging in again in about 15 minutes.

Your wireless card says that it supports WPA2 but you cannot select that for an authentication type.

Known working wireless cards

This is a list of cards that we have tested and have proven to work.
NOTE: This is merely a list of cards that have been tested but other cards may still be used.

ORiNOCO 11a/b/g ComboCard

Supports WPA with AES or TKIP

Supports the unencrypted web authentication

Works well and has good range

Linksys Wireless-G Notebook Adapter

Supports WPA with AES or TKIP

Supports WPA2** with AES or TKIP

Supports the unencrypted web authentication

Works well, but the drivers on the CD are old. Download the newest drivers from the web site.

Don't install the card manager software, just install the driver for the card.

Lucent ORiNOCO Gold

Supports the unencrypted web authentication

Works well and gets good reception, but doesn't work with encrypted channel

Intel Centrino Laptops*

Supports WPA with AES or TKIP

Supports WPA2** with AES or TKIP

Supports the encrypted web authentication

Gets great reception, but it is vital that the most recent drivers are installed and working

Card manager software only seems to work with the EAP-TTLS and PAP system, but it also works well with windows managing the wireless network setup.

*It is important that you have latest wireless drivers for your Intel Centrino Laptop
**WPA2 can only be used if you network card supports it.